A beautiful day today and I managed to walk up to the other end of the town to check out the new-to-our-town enterprise, the Farmer's Market. It was in the playground of one of the schools this week, handier than its other venue across the bye-pass in a field and much more in keeping with the spirit of these events which I know caught on in England ages ago - in fact when did they die out? Strange to think that such markets seem like a sparkly new idea when once they were the norm. Not so long ago - maybe even less than a century - women carried their husband's catch of fish into Forres to sell in the market; the local and not-so-local farmers sent their produce many miles down to these coastal towns and drove their beasts in to sell at the auction houses. We are always re-inventing the wheel!
There weren't many stalls out; I suppose it has to catch on slowly. The veggies looked limp and unappealing but the local cheeses looked really good and the organic venison stall - well, I was almost sorry I have stopped eating meat. Another pause for thought since at one time there would have been nothing BUT organic venison. Nowadays the meat in the butcher's is usually farm-reared stock and can be less naturally pastured than lamb sadly.
I took this photo of my friend Jo the artist with her neat little barrow. I have two of her nice original woodcuts on my wall at home but her speciality is landscapes. The woodcuts were for a book published a year or two ago about the Findhorn River. My favourites - the two I have - were of a bird and a squirrel. The squirrel I chose is a vibrant red that has nothing to do with the real red of the creature. I love it. Find examples of her work at her web site: www.jodarlingpaintings.co.uk
'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ' arrived today. I read it in one gulp whilst shop-sitting (the FM had taken all custom to the other end of town today dammit!) and am still wondering what to make of it. Some bits confused me - what was he (Pullman never mind Jesus) trying to say? It's simplicity of style was rather disarming. The one part I could totally cheer along with was Jesus's bitter words to God before the crucifixion, also his prediction for the future evils to be perpetrated in the name of God by the church which he saw would be built by his sickly twin Christ (who doubles for the devil in one or two scenes as well as being cast as Judas Iscariot at the end.)
"I can imagine some philosophical smartarse of a priest in years to come pulling the wool over his poor followers' eyes: 'God's great absence is of course the sign of his presence', or some such drivel. The people will hear his words and think how clever he is to say such things, and they'll try and believe it; and they'll go home puzzled and hungry, because it makes no sense at all. That priest is worse than the fool in the psalm who is at least an honest man. When the fool prays to you and gets no answer, he decides that God's great absence means he's not bloody well there."
I hope PP doesn't mind me reproducing this piece of text - I do so with respect because it spoke to me. I also like very much the message on the back cover of the book:
'This is a STORY.'
2 comments:
Another book I am not sure I want to read, so thanks for taking the strain. There was a fun spat on Review prog on gog about it with Christopher Hitchens puffed up like a poisoned frog, and a Reverend someone being relentlessly benign.
I will need to make a decision soon however as I am running out of Scandanavian detectives.
It's a serious problem this. I feel the whole of Scandinavia should be focusing on keeping our entertainment going.
Wish I'd seen the spat.
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